Abstract

This paper reflects upon the role of ethnography in tourism research: its conceptualization and epistemological implications, as well as the practical problems associated with work in the field. The application of ethnography to the study of tourism has often been invoked - in the context of a wider qualitative strategy of inquiry - yet at the same time it remains a relatively underemployed methodology. This may be partly due to the confusion that often reigns with regard to what precisely constitutes an ethnographic study, as well as perhaps the difficulties encountered in doing ethnographies of mobile peoples. This paper evaluates the scope of ethnographic methods in tourism studies and the challenges presented by the deployment of such a methodology in tourism. In particular, it interrogates the degree to which tourism ethnographies have dealt with questions of [narrative] authority, reflexivity and intersubjectivity with regard to representing and giving voice to the points of view of those being studied. In conclusion, it draws attention to the many potential applications of ethnography in tourism, not least the ability to give voice to the meaningful experiences of tourists, hosts and an array of other actors in the worlds of tourism, as well as its emphasis on the fullest possible immersion into the specific context(s) being studied, as the basis of developing indepth, longitudinal ethnographies of touristic phenomena